Epic Camping Gifts Ideas for Hikers and Adventurers

Valentines is just around the corner and we’ve been hunting high and low for the best gifts for campers! Whether you are looking for the perfect gift for yourself or an adventurous camping amigo, check out our list of gifts for campers.

Hand’s down, this is a must-have for any nomad, backpacker, hiker, adventurer or regular traveller. This is my favourite travel accessory and is vital for keeping my cash and Rizla papers safe when I am backpacking. I never travel without it. Buy it for the camper in your life and they are sure to be pretty stoked that they have the perfect way to hide their emergency money.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

You can conceal up to twenty folded notes inside the zipped inner-facing part of the security belt and, since the belt clasp is not metal, you can wear this belt through an airport scanner without setting it off.

What To Watch Out For:

The size fits up to a 46-inch waist. If your friend’s waist size is over that, this may not be the best fit.

Every camper should carry a torch in their arsenal. Petzl makes some of the best head torches in the business. It’s got an awesome beam distance of up to 400m, the battery lasts up to 18 hours and it includes an easy to use push button, so even if you are wearing thick gloves, it will be easy to turn on and off. If you’re looking for camping gift inspiration – a headlamp is a solid choice.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

This headlamp is my favourite as it has a red light setting meaning you can use it without insects being attracted to your forehead. One of the greatest camping gifts for folks who love adventure.

What To Watch Out For:

Your friend may have some difficulty locating the right batteries, so best to stock up when you first get your headlamp and give it to your friend with batteries.

This lightweight, waterproof, super compact pocket blanket is a must for all adventures. Doubling up as an emergency poncho, this picnic blanket is worth its weight in gold when chilling, or camping, on the beach. I always travel with one and recently was camping out under the stars in Iran on this very blanket. It comes with a carabiner, a secret zipped pocket where you can hide stuff and pocket loops which you can weigh down using stones.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

It fits in a pocket easily and takes less than 30 seconds to set up!

What To Watch Out For:

If you don’t weigh down the corners properly, it can take off in the wind

Worried your backpacker pal won’t get enough nourishment on their trip? You’ve stumbled upon the perfect gift for camping adventures. With the pocket rocket stove, they’ll be able to cook up meals fast, irrespective of the climate around them.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

The best part about this stove is it is absolutely TINY! It doesn’t get more portable this in the world of camping gear. If you think a stove is a perfect gift for the climber in your life; check out this detailed comparison post on the best stoves to take on adventures.

What To Watch Out For:

Be careful when you use this, and make sure you pack it well after using it.

Camping out means carrying limited, light food rations that don’t weigh you down as you hike through the day in search of a new campsite. But sometimes, tinned tuna and spam on bread just don’t cut it. A tiny portable stove with the smallest amount of fuel can last you over 6 meals, and you can cook yourself a warm, filling meal before you hit the sack every night. A portable cookware set is also safer, as it reduces the chances of you starting a wildfire near your camp!

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

The cookware set is compact and the burner is great since it collapses almost completely, but is still super stable when opened up. Cookware sets are great camping gifts for someone who is sick of eating cold, tinned food on their adventures.

What To Watch Out For:

The Wind can mess with the flames of the stove and put them out. A good curved stand will protect against this.

Hammocks make an excellent gift for campers, travellers, hikers and outdoorsy folks who want to watch the stars and save some money on accommodation costs, whilst they drift off. Hammocks are sexy, lightweight, fun to sleep in and offer you a ton of options for where to spend the night. There’s a lot of hammock options out there but if you don’t want to spend so much, I recommend getting a parachute hammock; they are super light, strong and durable.

These electronic candles are a total god-damn game changer. When you’re camping out, enjoying a cheeky smoke beneath the stars or getting cosy with your camping buddy, these candles are awesome for setting up some ambience. They flicker convincingly, don’t blow out like normal candles and won’t set fire to your tent… They are also super cheap with a whole pack of 24 costing less than $10.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

Instantly set the mood…

What To Watch Out For:

If you leave them turned on in your pack they will eventually run out of battery

You remember that time you were crossing a stream and your foot landed in slush and slipped, landing you straight into aforementioned slush? Well, I do. And let me tell you this, it wasn’t pretty. Obviously, I got up and dusted (wiped?) myself off ready to keep going, but all I could think of that day was how great a hot shower would feel.

A portable shower may not guarantee you hot water, but at least you get the shower experience. It’s definitely one of the best camping gifts I’ve received to date. The Nemo shower is perfect for quick showers while camping out on the beach, after a long swim or surf session in the ocean and best of all it’s super lightweight.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

Keep the shower in the sun long enough before you use it, and the grey exterior absorbs heat, giving you delightfully warm water.

What To Watch Out For:

Some folks have mentioned that wear and tear is something to watch out for with this product. The plastic fittings and pipes need to be maintained properly so they last longer.

The Vange two person camping tent is a great camping gift for someone who has just started to explore the joys of the outdoors. The sabre two person is waterproof, with a water protection layer that is more waterproof than more popular tent brands. The tent covers an area of 7 x 5 ft and is around 4 feet tall at the centre. As someone who has used this tent, I can tell you that it is well ventilated and comfortable.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

The tent isn’t just airy and comfortable, it is durable. The sabre tent comes with a mesh to keep bugs out and takes only around ten minutes to set up!

What To Watch Out For:

The space outside the tent may be a bit limited when it comes to storing gear. Especially in bad weather, you’ll have to make sure your gear doesn’t get damp outside.

Giving your friend a sleeping bag is great for camping out, but you know what would be even better? Changing your friend’s life with a camping gift that’ll give them one of the few things money can’t buy: a good night’s sleep. Sleeping pads come in all sizes, and although the shapes are largely uniform, I’d recommend a compact pad like the Thermarest Prolite Plus. Check out this post for a detailed breakdown of the best sleeping pads on the market right now.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

The Thermarest Prolite Plus is compact but still warm. With just a few breaths, it inflates in record time.

What To Watch Out For:

Make sure you don’t buy the wrong size for your friend, take into consideration how tall they are to get the best fit.

Whenever you are hitting the road, pack a microfibre towel for the journey. No matter if you are camping, hitching or partying hard, you should always have a super fast drying towel to keep you clean on the road. The Active Roots microfibre travel towel is one of the best value towels around, comes in multiple funky colours and, best of all, a percentage of all profits made by Active Roots go back to noble causes such as supporting Luang Prabang’s elephant sanctuary.

As previously mentioned, A headlamp is one of the best camping gifts you can offer a friend. Not only are they compact and lightweight, they are also super useful when the sun goes down. Upgrade your camping buddies headlamp and buy them a solar powered LED headlamp as a gift this Christmas.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

The solar panel on top of the headlamp charges through the day and is a great stand in for times when the regular batteries are drained.

What To Watch Out For:

When cycling or rock climbing, you may want to fasten the headlamp extra tight to make sure it doesn’t slip off and get damaged.

Camping emergencies do happen! One of the most useful camping gifts you can give someone is an emergency survival pod kit. The Campsnail Pod Kit comes with a 12 in 1 pocket survival card, a compass, needles, alcohol pads to sterilizes surfaces and wounds and a whole lot more. The best part? It’s so compact, it weighs less than a 100 grams, and can be latched onto your backpack for easy access.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

The magnesium fire starter kit and the fishing hooks are priceless additions to this super useful kit.

What To Watch Out For:

The cord that this kit comes with can go through wear and tear over time with use, and also with lack of use. If the kit has been stuck on a backpack for ages, the cord may need a good inspection before it’s used for anything extreme.

No other camping gifts can make your friend feel quite ‘like a sir’ as when you give them a camping chair. They may seem like an odd, unwieldy object to gift and carry, but it’s the small luxuries that count. When it comes to outdoor gift ideas, you’re giving your friend a chance to kick back and stretch after a long day of driving, riding or hiking. The Coleman camping chair also has a mesh backing that makes sure air flows through the chair and keeps things cool. Admittedly this is not an ideal gift for die-hard hikers but more for folks who like to camp on the weekends or who are travelling in a campervan.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

The handy mesh covered compartment to store water (or ideally, a cold beer) is just the right size.

What To Watch Out For:

You’ll need to fix any stability issues while setting up the chair, if you’re in a rush, you might end up on the floor instead of the chair!

While we’re out travelling, and sometimes even while camping, we’re all likely to be stuck in a situation where we have time to kill and end up using our phones or devices until they are drained of all life. This is where it’s useful to carry a portable travel charger for the devices you use most often.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

This portable charger can charge three devices at once and even comes with a waterproof pouch!

What To Watch Out For:

Portable chargers need dedicated time to recharge, so remember to get right on that the first place you reach with stable electricity.

I never hit the road without a notebook, or three, in my pack. When I’m camping out, I love to chill with my thoughts and write down any revelations that hit me! These funky notebooks from Marco Polo make for the perfect gift for the adventurer in your life!

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

It comes with stickers!

What To Watch Out For:

If thrown hard like a throwing star, you could possibly give yourself a paper cut.

One of the most unique camping gifts you can give someone is the power to get closer to colourful, chirping birds and the clear, starlit night skies at camp. Binoculars may sound large and unwieldy but science has changed them plenty. There are now options that aren’t just lightweight, but also have magnifying capacities of up to 8X, making them great camping gifts. Niceshop’s binocular offers you dual focus, with 100% optical glass to help you take in the world around you better at camp.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

The anti-skid and shock proof rubber material of the binoculars make it sturdy and reliable. The cleaning kit that comes with the product is an added bonus.

What To Watch Out For:

Getting the focus right on the binoculars may take some getting used to. Best to tell your friend to be patient for this part!

It may seem crazy to spend the time and energy to go camping far away just to still be connected to “the real world”, but sometimes you want to share a view from the most remote locations, or in an emergency, find your way back in the dark without relying on a compass and a map. Enter the Garmin smart watch. The Garmin watch is a bit expensive as a camping gift, but is also extremely useful when it comes to tracking health and fitness, social networking and has tons of fun entertainment apps – something to keep them occupied on arduous train journeys and long haul flights!.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

With 8 GB of internal memory, the Garmin watch can store a number of updates. The watch can also store golf maps that display in colour. The battery life is great too!

What To Watch Out For:

The touchscreen of the watch does not work underwater. Try to lock the screen before using it underwater to prevent damage.

When you set up a camp, you probably prefer to set up by the side of a water source or river. While it’s most likely that this water is good to drink being in the great outdoors and all, you may not always want to take the risk when you are on the move. In an emergency situation or when you are away from the campsite, you’ll have to make do with any whatever water you find. Being debilitated by stomach pain (or worse a stomach upset) is the least ideal camping situation. So how do you make sure water is pure enough to drink?

Enter the Steripen Water Filter. The purifier can remove 99.9% of waterborne bacteria such as salmonella, cholera, and E.coli. The filter can purify up to 1500 litres of water, so you’re good to use it for a long time.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

The purifier is chargeable by USB and can sterilise one litre of water in 90 seconds. It even smiles at you when your water is ready to drink.

What To Watch Out For:

The pen may not work at extremely cold temperatures like on or at the base of glaciers. Make sure to test your device before you leave to keep tabs on how well it works.

This solar powered power bank is one of the best camping gifts for hikers. Just strap one onto a backpack and let it catch the harsh rays of the sun while you trudge through the day sweating it out. Your reward? A fully charged power bank that can power your phone for days on end with a single charge.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

The battery charges to its fullest in little under six hours, after which it will last for multiple full recharges of a cell phone (think 4-8 cycles) Awesome, right?

What To Watch Out For:

Handle the power bank with care. It may be water resistant, but that doesn’t mean it is waterproof, and it definitely can’t withstand hard knocks or falls.

These travel ‘urinals’ may seem like an odd camping gifts to give to somebody, but in terms of how much confidence they will give your lady friend and how they empower her in the outdoors, this is definitely a winner. Also worth considering because of the laughter that’ll ensue when the gift is opened. Make sure you’re there for it!

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

She can stand and pee at the same time! No more worrying about wild animals lurking around her while she crouches behind the bushes. No need for concern about rashes from strange shrubs that may graze her nether regions. What a winner!

What To Watch Out For:

It may take awhile to get the hang of this device. Especially when you use it on the move and when there are other folks around. A bit of practice would help.

The Amazon Kindle is one of the unique camping gifts you can give someone. It isn’t exclusively for camping, and you can also use it indoors, outdoors and on-the-go. Books become heavy and burdensome to carry on a camping trip. A kindle is light and is the perfect way to store multiple books for a long trip.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

The glare-free backlit screen makes the Kindle perfect for reading at night.

What To Watch Out For:

The light, when on in a tent may attract bugs and other creepy crawlies, watch out!

Nine years of travel tested tips, tricks and know-how! Everything your amigo needs to know to ditch their desk, hit the road and earn money as they travel around the world. Actionable advice and steps on planning, finances, where to go, making friends, staying safe, picking up work and building an online income – this is the bible for long term travel.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

Nobody want’s to work for someone else – this book gives you the blueprint to long-term budget travel and teaches you how to travel dirt cheap whilst you build an online income.

The awesomeness of listening to your favourite tunes in the outdoors combined a soft lamp for the outdoors? Who wouldn’t want one of those camping gifts? With less than 5% distortion, this is a great speaker to dance it out in the outdoors. The speaker has a 4400 mAh power bank and can last up to 8 hours on a single charge.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

As someone who loves music, I can tell you there’s nothing more awesome than receiving a speaker as a gift. Especially one that is portable, Bluetooth, can charge my phone and light up my tent. This is also a gift that a friend can use when they aren’t camping or on the move. Wins all around!

What To Watch Out For:

You will need to recharge the lithium-ion battery that comes inbuilt with the speaker before long trips. Try to wait until the speaker is dying or dead before you begin charging it again, this should help the battery last longer.

The Grizzly Bushcraft knife is sharp and efficient. The handles are strong and provide great grip. Whether you are cutting rope or fruit, your knife stays sharp. The knife also has a safety lock feature to prevent sudden closure that may hurt the user. Overall, a great camping gift that never stops being useful and really stands the test of time.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

The Grizzly bushcraft knife is compact and fits right in your pocket, alongside wallet and keys comfortably.

What To Watch Out For:

The handle or grip is smaller than it looks in the photo and quite narrow.

This little speaker is powerful, lightweight, water resistant and inexpensive. Amazing for sharing tunes with new friends from around the world, while making sure you aren’t giving anyone nearby a sleepless night!

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

This gift is so compact, you can literally carry it around in your pocket. I remember having an awesome time rock climbing to some of my favourite tunes with this speaker safe in my pocket. The speaker supports all devices with Bluetooth such as iPhone, iPad, iPod, Samsung Galaxy/Note/tablet, Android phones

What To Watch Out For:

This super tough speaker is hard to break so even if you drop it, you should be all good. It’s water resistant though – not waterproof, remember that there’s a difference and don’t take it swimming!

When your friend hits the road on travels, one of the most useful ways to plan the trip involves backpacker insurance. Even the most avid backpacker has had to use travel insurance at least one time. You never know when sudden mishaps occur. In my case, a wisdom tooth my dentist had warned me to watch out for made a grand, painful entrance and had to be taken out.

I recommend World Nomads Travel Insurance they hands down have the best support and if you do need to claim they will help you get it sorted quickly.

What Your Friend Will Love About It:

Travel Insurance isn’t a tangible gift that can be seen and felt – until you are really in a soup. In a difficult situation, your friend won’t be able to thank you enough for your foresight. And you will be happy seeing your friend off knowing that you’ve got their back even if you aren’t travelling with them.

What To Watch Out For:

Companies that offer limited benefits and charge lots of money for it are tricky. The worst situation is having insurance and being in a situation where it doesn’t cover what your friend needs. Try to invest in a policy that has broad scope and benefits.

Aaaand That’s A Wrap!

So there you have it. The ultimate mix of camping gifts — from basic survival necessities to campsite luxuries and even a few for entertainment on camping adventures. I hope I’ve inspired you with this list of gifts for campers and if you think I’ve left something awesome off the list, let me know in the comments!

Don’t forget to throw in some smores with your camping gift so your friend can toast ‘em over a bonfire!

Need More Inspiration?

Yay for transparency! The links in this post are affiliate links. That means if you buy any of the products using our links we’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Never fear, we actually use and/or want all of these things. We don’t endorse crappy gifts!

Writer and hustler. Adventurer and vagabond. Master of the handstand pushup. Conqueror of mountains, survivor of deserts and crusader for cheap escapades. Will has been on the road for nine years, travelling to far-flung lands on a budget. Today, he runs a number of online ventures. He is passionate about teaching others how to ditch their desks, hit the road and achieve real freedom by earning money online. Currently, Will is on a four year journey from the UK to Papua New Guinea; travelling through truly special countries such as Iran, Pakistan and Bhutan whilst running his businesses online.

You may also like

7 Comments

Wow, some great ideas here, not only for campers but generally for travellers. I especially like the solar power bank and I’m currently searching for a powerful enough one (only finding 8000mAh so far 🙁 )
Cheers, N.NTripping recently posted…Why You’ll Never Have Money For Your Dream Trip

Interesting list with some great items to gift. The last great gift I received was a Leatherman Skeletool. Like the Leatherman crater, it is a great item to gift.
Alas !! I have not found anyone who would gift me a Garmin watch :).Trisk recently posted…Best gag gifts for outdoor lovers in 2017